there are four exceptions to every rule
by recycled-stars
Summary: a character study of Beckett in her youth, through four encounters with different women.
1. the adult version of playing with dolls

**Notes: **for the prompts _Beckett/female college friend, discovery, comfort, rough, regret _at a kink meme over at LJ. Contains an original female character.

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_i. the adult version of playing with dolls._

Alice extends the invitation in your empty dorm room, fingering the gap in the paint left by her Radiohead poster. You lean back against your packed suitcase and watch her raise herself on tip toes to peel off the last of the adhesive. She shakes her head, displeased with the state of the paint, and you watch the ends of her hair tease at the small of her back. Indulging in some idle voyeurism, you let your gaze shift to her hand, tucked into the back pocket of her denim cut-offs.

She gives you a coy look. "Are you imagining me in a swimsuit Katie B?"

You smirk. "I don't have to imagine."

"You're right." Ali beams at you. "Because you're going to keep me company while my parents are in Europe; house to ourselves, my parents' top shelf liquor, lounging by the pool." She's stepping closer to you as she speaks and finishes blinking up at you as she wraps her arms around your neck. "My gorgeous best friend. Ah," she sighs. "The perfect way to spend a summer."

Alice is the kind of girl that makes you _not_want to say _I'll have to ask my parents_so you don't; you just step side-to-side, complicit in her excited dance, and smile right back at her.

Six weeks later, she empties the opaque black plastic bag onto the bed of her parents' guest room as she collapses onto it, bouncing a little on the mattress. You pause in the doorway and watch her. She throws you a _look_and shifts as she rolls her eyes, shifting her hips and stretching out one incredibly bare leg.

"Don't tell me you're _still_weirdly repressed and embarrassed about this." She rolls her shoulders back, pointedly slow, and you try to ignore the way her chest moves and her nipples tense beneath her tank top. The way she eyes you tells you you're meant to notice, that she's teasing in more ways than one. "I mean, we've already gone and done the potentially awkward public part."

"I'm not a prude Ali." You fold your arms and lean against the doorframe.

"Then stop scowling at me and get over here." She gestures enthusiastically to the space beside her and begins unwrapping one of her purchases. "For the fun part," she adds, cheekily, as you settle cross-legged in front of her.

"I can't believe you bought this in _pink_," you say, pressing the buttons on 'the rabbit' she bought on the recommendation of _Sex and the City_. You flick through the settings, smirking a little at its many and varied functions.

"I genuinely like pink." She pouts at you and pokes you with the small, simpler bullet you decided to buy. It's black and … practical looking. (Besides, it was inexpensive and since you've been getting along fine with your own two hands for years now, you figured a costly experiment was unnecessary.)

"I'm just saying, if you wanted to be less of a sorority girl cliché, this is not the way."

She's saved from responding by the blur of ears as you find the highest speed setting. You fumble to turn it off and as soon as you do, Ali giggles and you follow suit.

"Oh my god." She leans forward to lay her hand over yours and the pink rabbit. Her thumb finds the bones of your wrist and then neither of you are laughing.

"Seems like overkill," you say, for something to say.

She nods, leans forward and –

You don't kiss her but she's staring at you like maybe she wants to kiss you, like she wants you to kiss her. The moment stretches – her hovering over you, you debating internally – and it's on the verge of awkward when finally, she lowers her lips to your ear and says, "Maybe we should find out."

You abandon your grip on the rabbit in favour of gripping at her hip and lean up into her mouth. The last time you kissed her she tasted of beer and you were too drunk to care: this time her tongue is precise in your mouth and she finishes with her teeth teasing at your lip. When she pulls back to smirk down at you, straddling your thighs, you decide it's time to regain the upper hand.

Ali has always had a certain power over you – she's gorgeous and loud and a tease – but in bed? You've never been one to submit. And you know that when it comes to _this_, you have more than experience on your side.

(Ali _wants_this, _wants_you and you've known it for months.)

You run your hand up the front of her shirt, stopping to thumb over her breast. Leading with your nails you reach her neck, draw her down to your mouth. She closes her eyes when she kisses, which you know because you watch her, and you wait until she's groaning against your tongue to roll her sideways.

When you have her pinned against the mattress, your knee pressed against the seam of those ridiculous denim cut-offs, it's your turn to smirk at the way she responds. This is your favourite lesson from your first year of college and it's why you've developed a bit of a taste for lights-on sex: partners respond to you when you take control and you like the shift in their expression, like the way your dominance can excite them. There's a thrill in it that you've chased since you discovered it and you feel it now, when Ali arches into you.

She opens her mouth – to breathe or to speak you don't know – but you kiss her before she can do either.

Her palms are warm against your thighs.

"This is going to have to go," you whisper firmly against the corner of her mouth, tugging at the hem of her shirt. She nods and you pull back, silent in a mutual fumble with her clothing until she's half-naked beneath you and gasping at the contrast of your teeth to your tongue against her nipple.

Her thighs tense around your leg and her hips rock into it when you trace her ribs with your nails.

"You're right," you say, when you've mouthed your way back up to her lips. It's mostly muted by the kiss you press against them. But you pull back properly to finish the sentiment: "We should test our purchases."

She groans at the thought, eyes closed and one arm curled behind her head, her whole body tensing between yours which makes it even sweeter when you extract yourself from her in one fluid movement and watch her go slack with confusion.

"Kate, what are you –"

The question stalls when you undo the first button on your shirt. "I want to play with this," you say, popping a button for every word until your shirt is undone and you're twisting the black bullet back and forth in your hands.

Ali starts forward but you shake your head. "No," you scold. "You stay there."

She tries her usual pout. "Where's the fun in that for me?"

You unclasp your bra and throw it free of the bed, watching her eyes on your fingers as you bring them back to tease at your own chest. The smile you reward her with is sweet. "You get to watch."

And she does watch, intently, as you divest yourself of the rest of your clothes matter-of-factly and position yourself back on the bed. Your desire to touch yourself is greater than your desire to tease her further, so you do, teeth digging into your lip as you watch Ali's face.

You're already wet and you rub the hard of your palm up against it, smearing your hand so it slips against your clit when you fuck yourself with your fingers.

It's Ali who moans, like she's trying to pretend that she doesn't know it's what you need but also, a little bit like she means it. And that's why it works, and you know you could grind against your hand twice and come.

You don't, because you want to draw it out.

You flex your wrist so there's no pressure on your clit and curl your fingers without moving them inside you. With your free hand, you gesture for Ali to come closer. She crawls forward until you stop her with your palm, stroking the side of her face.

"Don't touch," you instruct, holding her eyes until she nods.

Your fingers are wet when you pull them free and you hold them out to her mouth. The flat of her tongue is rough until she sucks on them and then her mouth is warm and soft and even wetter than your hand. You have an impulse, a tender urge to brush the angle of her jaw with your thumb, but you don't. Instead you grope for the bullet with your free hand, manage to twist it on.

The hum of it catches her attention but Ali doesn't stop with the insistent and deft movements of her tongue.

(Just for a moment, before you press it inside you, her tongue makes you you regret the toys, regret the game.)

The sensation is pleasurable but not overwhelming when you move the bullet in and out. Ali releases your fingers from her mouth and sits back, sprawled on the bed and eye level with your cunt, eyes fixed on the repetitive motion. Her hands are toying with the zip of her shorts and that's what _your_eyes are fixed on.

Your orgasm builds and you become fixated on the thought of working your hand into the front of her pants and _feeling_ how much she wants you until it's unbearable to deny yourself. The vibrator _is_overwhelming when you move it to press against your clit. It shudders and you shudder and you barely move it twice before you collapse forward, into the mattress and Ali, moaning in surprise at the intensity of it.

When she moves beneath you, you realise your mouth is pressed wet against her stomach. You lift her chin and give her a predatory smile, forcing your lax limbs into climbing her body until you can whisper it in her ear: "You were right. I think this thing was a solid investment."

She shivers. You watch it creep down her chest.

"But there's always the old-fashioned way."

You reach down and palm your way into the front of the denim cut-offs she is slick beneath your hand.

The discovery has you smiling like you've won something, which is exactly how you like it.

(Ali likes it too. She cries out when you move your hand.)


	2. don't be scared, I've done this before

It's by chance that you run into Maddie after you bury your mother. It's too cold but you brave the streets anyway because the apartment is too full of her and you wander for a while until you find yourself staring out over the Hudson with your hands in shoved deep in your pockets. The view should be familiar but after eighteen months in California and the death of a parent, all of New York feels alien.

The high school nickname transports you, briefly and after, when Maddie is waving her hand in your face, you ache with nostalgia.

"Kate Beckett," your old friend says, curling a gloved hand against her hip. "What's a nice girl like you doing in a place like this?"

"Getting some space," you say, honest-without-thinking. Your eyes are fixed on Maddie's lips, shiny and red with gloss, just the same as they always were in high school. And then, remembering yourself, you blink and force your lips into the ghost of a smile. "I could ask you the same question Maddie."

She waves a hand. "Home from college and I hear you on the space thing. Moving back in with my parents? _Not _fun. I thought I'd see if the old stomping ground had changed on my way back from shopping." The impressive collection of bags swings back and forth on her wrist. "No place like New York."

"No."

"Becks." Maddie's teeth sink into her lip at your brusque answer. "It's been years. Don't you think we can put the whole Brent Edwards thing behind us? I was wrong and I'm sorry and I think he's _gay _now anyway."

That's when you start to cry. It's not the quiet crying you do at home in your bedroom, in the hopes that your father won't see or hear; it's loud and unmistakable and ugly. At the time, you thought the pain of their betrayal was unbearable but you would give anything, _anything_, to be sixteen again and know nothing of real grief; to be crying over a boy with a mother to comfort you.

Madison only hesitates for a second. Her bags fall to the floor at your feet and she steps forward to hug you, pulling your head down to her shoulder. The wool of her glove clings to your hair as she strokes it and in her heels, she's tall enough for you to bury your face in her neck so you do. She smells the same, Thierry Mugler's _Angel _and strawberry lip gloss, and that's what slows your tears. It's a strange comfort, but you breathe it in until you're not crying anymore and the two of you are just standing there, silent in the freezing street.

Her breath is warm against the shell of your ear. "I'm guessing this isn't about Brent Edwards."

You shake your head and mumble it into her coat, trying to keep your voice steady: this particular admission isn't getting any easier with time. "My mother… she's dead."

"Oh Becks." Maddie whispers and the way the weight of the revelation hits her is audible. "I'm so sorry."

She takes your hand. "I know how to take your mind off it for a while."

Her parents' apartment looks completely different, but her room looks exactly the same, right down to the Mariah Carey poster above the bed. It's unmade and she climbs into it, pats the space beside her. As soon as you settle into it, she wraps herself around you, arms slung awkwardly over your shoulders and fingers dancing against the fabric of your sweater. It's a pleasant way to indulge your misery even if you haven't seen her for years. She's a throwback to high school and ever since you came home to find the detective waiting for you, you have felt sixteen again. You're angry and hurt and you want to throw a tantrum like you might've as a child but your father is barely holding it together and you know that you're an adult now. In this moment though, it's nice to pretend. It's no longer like you to relax into physical affection this way, but with her you do. Old habits, dying hard. You wonder just how many high school habits she wants to revisit.

You make it through two episodes of _Saved By The Bell _until you're convinced it's not just in your head, that her fingers are deliberate when they brush the side of your breast, along the curve of your waist, beneath the hem of your sweater. You squirm when they find skin, the cold of her hand against the warm of your stomach.

"You okay?" she murmurs, flexing her fingers.

The press of her nails has you swallowing at the tension in the pit of your stomach and between your legs. You nod, let your hand creep from your thigh to hers beneath the blanket.

This is how it's always been with Maddie, ever since you met in the ninth grade. You both pushed the boundaries of innocent touching, until the summer before tenth grade, when you taught her how to French kiss and the touching became less innocent. At the time, you didn't think of it as sexual; you were practicing, you never touched her like _that _even if you wanted to, even if sometimes you thought about it and even if thinking about it made it easier to work yourself off with your own hand.

Now though, you know it is what it is. And, when you kiss her as a test and she smirks as you lick strawberry gloss off your lips, you know she does too.

She cranes her neck to reclaim your mouth, a lot less awkward than she used to be. You wonder if Brent Edwards taught her that.

You both shift and then she's kneeling between your legs, thumbs tracing along your clavicles. Your hands grip at her waist then map the curve of it, the tips of your fingers edging at the hem of her cropped sweater. (It's so very impractical for a New York winter, but that was always Madison, slave to fashion.) She leans into your hands, drops an afterthought of a kiss against your lower lip and sits up to pull of the sweater leaving your staring at an eyeful of cleavage which has definitely … developed since high school. You feel a stab of jealous insecurity about your own but push it down when you remember that no one you've fuck ever seems to mind.

She pushes the hair that has escaped from your butterfly clips behind your ear gently. "Oh Becks." Her fingers are soft against your cheek, sympathetic, and she bends to kiss you softly, cradling your face. "Is this okay?"

(The whisper is warm as it graces the side of your face. She's nosing into your cheek.)

The lace of her bra scratches beneath your fingers. It makes you wonder what's beneath her bell-bottomed jeans, whether her underwear matches, whether she likes the friction of it. You nod, savouring the gasp thumbing across her nipples elicits. She was always vocal. You like that in a lover, like the way your body finds ways to cradle the sound, like it thrums right through you and settles in your gut.

"I know I probably can't make you feel better," she says, scrambling backwards and pulling off her jeans.

(You were right about the matching set. When she settles back between your legs, you palm down her back and rub your hands against the lace until they burn.)

"I'd like to try," she says between light kisses, some of which miss your mouth.

She's so very gentle, and you don't want her to be.

You bite her lip.

The cry is all pain and no pleasure, but you enjoy it anyway. You're not usually cruel, but people wear grief in interesting ways. Her eyes gleam as she tastes the wound you've left her with.

"Make me forget," you mumble, feeling contrite and sad and so very turned on.

Madison launches at you, teeth at the curve of your neck, nails scratching down into what she can grab of your ass. You dig your fingers into the arch of her spine. The realism of it suddenly distracts you from the surrealism: her slightly awkward position, the warmth of her mouth, the pinch of her perfectly painted red nails. There's ridiculousness to real sex that you find comforting; it's so often missing in the fictional counterpart and you don't know why writers gloss over the messy, uncoordinated truth of it, the fact that you are just two writhing bodies seeking a primal desire.

It doesn't matter that she's your high school best friend, that _Saved By The Bell _is still playing in the background, that you're not really sure how letting girls fuck you fits into your nominal heterosexuality, that your mother is dead. It doesn't matter because when you palm at her through the lace of her underwear and she moans at the rough contact you have ever felt less evolved. And you have never been more grateful for that feeling. It reminds you that you're human. (Ever since you buried your mother, you don't really feel human. You're mean and dead inside and raging at the world.)

She pinches at your breasts through the layers of clothing that you're still wearing, that are making you far too hot, but it's your jeans she removes, until you're half-naked and she's biting up your thighs.

This is cheap relief but it does make you forget so you watch your cunt making a mess of her mouth until you can't watch anymore.

You scream your orgasm into one of her pink floral frilly-bordered pillows so her parents don't hear it.


End file.
